From Azusa Street Until Now, Part 5

Rev. Raymond M. Jackson

WE ARE CONTINUING WITH OUR THOUGHT AT THE END OF THE MAY ISSUE: HOW THIS ROCK MUSIC OF OUR DAY HAS DEPROGRAMMED THE MINDS OF OUR YOUTH; AND BECAUSE OF IT, THEY HAVE THROWN OUT ALL OF THE CLASSICAL MUSIC SO MANY PEOPLE ENJOYED IN DAYS GONE BY; AND THEY HAVE NO USE FOR THE PROFESSIONALS THAT PLAYED THOSE BEAUTIFUL SYMPHONIES.

Just think of it: Those composers of other generations did not write songs of a diabolical taste like this rock bunch of so-called song writers do today. Then when you leave that, and come over to the semi classical type, the songs of bygone years were not sad, perverted messages carried on the tune of a beat that is nothing but a noise. When you hear some of this so-called gospel music out here in the Charismatic circles today, you realize those people have become so blinded to true holiness they go out into the world and bring in long haired, hippie looking, rock, “gospel singers” that actually make a mockery of what the true Church stands for. That bunch will leap, jump and dance to the same beat that wild bunch at Wood Stock danced to. They have merely changed the lyrics; but they still have the same tempo; and therefore it is none other than Satan in disguise. Those are things you can safely say God is not in. It just goes to show that those poor souls out there do not know how to separate the one from the other. However let me quickly say, That is not something for us to worry about: Our main concern is that we keep ourselves apart from the effects of that spirit and check ourselves to see how we fit in with God’s plan here at the end of the Age. I believe, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see ourselves right in the pages of this blessed old book. IT IS NONE OTHER THAN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST BEING MADE ALIVE IN US; and the Bible tells us to take on the mind of Christ; so we have to look in here to see what the mind of Christ is. Of course you do not see His physical image yet; but you can see Him by the revelation of what is written in the pages throughout His book. He is looking right at you. When I think what Jesus told His disciples in Mark’s gospel, it lets me know exactly, what kind of Church He is coming back to receive unto Himself. Let us turn to the 4th chapter and read this parable. When Jesus spoke this parable, it sounded so simple. Just think, He is using a grain of corn. Let us just lay this before the religious world, before those who are educated in the most popular educated hour in human history, and see what their response is. They have the capabilities of educating man’s intellect into the highest peak of human learning: Yet nature itself is enough to tell them, You are getting too high up: to see how to understand God; because Gods always works in the realm of simplicity. When Jesus spoke this parable, it should have been enough for even the Charismatics of this religious world to know that they are trying to present to the Lord a church different than what the Bible says He is coming for. He is not coming for an element out of that mass out there today. He is not coming for anything like that at all; because that is not what Christianity looked like when it started on its journey through this Age of Grace. When Jesus spoke here in Mark 4:26, So is the kingdom of God, just try to keep in mind that we were talking earlier about the kingdom of heaven. When speaking of the kingdom of heaven we are dealing with a span of time; but here we are talking about the kingdom of God which pertains to something brought forth within that span of time. That is actually referring to the Church itself, the people that have God’s spiritual kingdom dwelling inside of them. “And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day.” He is actually saying, Over the process of time, as the farmer puts corn, wheat, rice or whatever into the ground, he knows what it looked like when he planted it: Therefore he knows what to look for as it reproduces itself. Why is he planting it in the first place? He knows there is a germ of life in that which he is planting and he wants to receive much more just like it. That is the law of reproduction. Well he casts the seed into the ground: then what? The farmer, once he puts it there, he knows he cannot go back out there the next day and dig it up to see if he has more rice or wheat. No. He knows that has to die from its original identity first: before it will ever give forth the increase that he is expecting. THAT IS THE LAW OF REPRODUCTION. Therefore the Lord (by the use of this parable) is telling mankind the Church will be like that also: God will gather from what is being looked upon as Christianity, those who are exactly like the first Church of the book of Acts. “And should sleep, and rise night and day, (In other words, it will take a process of time before it will be ready to gather in.) and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.” The Lord is saying that God will establish it in the earth and leave it there until harvest time. It will have a certain, definite identity; and He knows what it will be like. That means every doctrine that was written in the first century of Christendom, was given to the Church by the revelation of the Holy Ghost, through men that were inspired of the Holy Ghost. This of course, was to be the life means of the Church before she died out of the earth in her original identity. Jesus continues, it will spring up, grow up, he knoweth not how. It means this, the farmer, the man who does this, does not have to explain how it works. It is God who established the law regulating how it will work. The law of God is just as this parable says: “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself;” meaning, there are nutrients in there that the seed will feed on, and the Spirit, which is the germinating life of God Himself, brings it back up in its season. He will watch over it and see that the light that was in the original seed will definitely begin to reproduce and show itself, at first, with an altogether different likeness. The Lord likens it to this, “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade.” This means the stalk or plant growth. If you are looking at rice, then you have to understand what that plant of rice will look like once it is out of the ground and has reached a state of maturity. If it is corn, you have to understand what that is to look like. That is the blade He is referring to. “First the blade, then the ear.” This is pertaining to the head, whether it is an ear, a head of wheat, or we will say the top, which is oats. This means there is a place within this plant growth where there is a head that shows itself; and there is where what you planted begins to form itself in exact likeness. How come the early Church had certain biblical characteristics? All through that early Church, the Spirit that Jesus was talking about was the Spirit that caused the apostles to write every epistle we are privileged to read. Yet that religious mass of humanity out there today are guilty of embracing the teachings of men that Satan has used to strip the Church of her doctrines: such as predestination, the one God revelation, water baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, along with various other fundamental teachings of the early Church. Time has proved that men became guilty of yielding themselves to the devil and they stripped the Church of the revelation of those teachings that were written and established by the apostles. Today when you hear them preach, they will go into the epistles, take certain passages of scripture that pertain to the blessing side of the gospel, or to a promise side of the gospel, wherein God has promised to meet some particular need in our life; but these other passages of scripture that pertain to things that carnal minded people want to ignore, things that were written for our own learning, how our flesh can be dealt with, and how we are to become crucified to the flesh, and the things of this flesh, in order that we might truly live holy unto the Lord, you will find that some of these things begin to be excluded, or hidden far in the background and treated as irrelevant to our modern day society. A week ago Jackie called and asked if we had a certain station on TV. We turned it on and it showed this place in Canada that some of these articles are written about. In there, was a mass of people. It showed just exactly what was going on. People were dressed as if they had just drifted in from off the streets: just any old way. THEY LOOKED JUST LIKE WORLDLY PEOPLE; but there they were reaching across one another, praying for one another, and they were literally slain and falling under the power of God: some with ear rings and what-have-you. I have to say, Young men, you need an ear ring in your ear just about like I need web feet to walk on water, if you catch the point. When I see healthy, handsome young men today in department stores selling items to people I think, What is the purpose of a ring in the ear of a man? I remember the only kind of pictures we saw like that, when I was a boy, we associated that to the islands of the South Pacific. I saw my share of them in WW2. Or you would associate it with some distant jungle in Africa, when they had sticks through their nose and so forth. It is a shame, how young men have allowed the devil to strip them of their brains; and now they have rings in their nose, rings in their ears, their tongue’s and who knows where else. Young girls have rings in their lips, and tattoos all over them; and they feel no shame. This young generation of our day needs something to identify with: Even those who would be children of God. They need something. That is why I have to say, Thank God for a move of His Spirit that has served to balance this thing out. Young people, I say to you, Learn to enjoy it and thank God for it. He has given you something those out there do not have. They will never have it because they refuse to submit their flesh to be crucified with Jesus Christ: which brings the power of God that is able to transform them and renew them; and make them into the image and likeness of the Jesus that died for us. As I watched that, I thought, Yes, God moves across that crowd like that; and He will manifest the things of His Spirit; and they think they are really being caught up in the greatest revival of the century; but when it is all passed over and done, they are still as ignorant concerning the things of God, as that stray dog that knows not where his home is. They have no revelation. They refuse to get their nose in this book: so they cannot possibly know anything much about the God of it. When Jesus spoke this parable, first the blade, then the ear, then what? (Mark 4:29) “But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.” That means, if it is rice or whatever, when you see the little kernels of rice or corn begin to form and take position in the top of the plant, all you wait for then is time to season it, the time it takes to bring it to complete maturity. When the fruit is brought forth, meaning when the fruit has eventually reached it’s proper state of maturity, then the farmer comes to the field to get it. Therefore I have to say, When the true Church down here has finally reached its end time state of apostolic maturity, the state where it not only has the same power, but also the same spiritual revelation motivating it, directing it through life, so she is not just stumbling forward on the pathway of life blindly, not even knowing where she is in time, but fully awake and ready, that is when He will come for her. That will be His (God’s) predetermined time for harvest. When all of the bride Church knows exactly who she is and where she is, the time will be at hand. That is why in the book of Revelation she can call herself the Bride; and she has the last words to this generation of people in the world: The Spirit and the Bride say, Come and partake of the water of life freely. What would you expect to harvest if all of you were farmers and you planted corn in May? You would all expect to harvest corn exactly like you planted but with much increase. Is that not right? Well I will just reverse the question and lay it out here to the Charismatics and that type of people: What do you read in the Bible that would make you think God would harvest a crop like you are producing and referring to as the bride of Christ? What kind of Church do you think the Lord Jesus is coming for? You will say He is coming for one filled with the Holy Ghost. That is true; but what else? A Church that is believing His word. Yes, but how much of it? That is the question: How much of it? Those who have ignored or rejected true revelation of the scriptures have been stripped of most everything they may have started out with. That is why they do not even know how to identify themselves. Some will say, When you talk this way, it makes people who have just come out of a denomination, or maybe have not yet come out, wonder what kind of people we are. It sounds like you are calling them devils. No we are not calling them devils; but may God have mercy on people that have more faith in a religious system than they have in the authority of God’s word. It is a pitiful picture I see out here today. Oh how blind this world is. Just think, saints, the pope and all the archbishops of Canterbury, no matter how much they talk in tongues, they stand before the bodies of people they influence they control just as blind as they can be. Furthermore they are not trying to change the church or let themselves be changed, revelatory wise: They just want to exercise authority over their subjects. They are only interested in certain things they see as basic. They think because the Holy Spirit moves among them and blesses them and heals a few here and there, this is all God is interested in. As I have already said, Yes, it is God manifesting Himself among them; but for what purpose? It is God Himself that sends them a strong delusion: so that they are made to think, This has to be the right way. Why does God do it? Paul says because they have not the love of the truth. That is what you and I have received and should thank God for every day: the love of the truth. EVERY MEMBER OF THE BRIDE CHURCH WILL HAVE A LOVE FOR THE TRUTH: NOTHING SHORT OF A TRUE REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD WILL SATISFY THAT CHOSEN ELEMENT OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TODAY. That is why other people look upon us as a minority: simply because we are so few; but I have to say, Though we are a minority now, we are going to be the majority in the end. Little is much if God be in it. Have you ever heard that? If we will allow God to take our lives and mold them, we are going to wind up being the ones that the heavenly Bridegroom comes for. That is not because we merit it by our own goodness: it is because the grace of God made it like this.

END TIME SEPARATION

Let us now go back to Matthew 13, and read that other parable that speaks of the end time. (Verse 47) “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: (48) Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. (49) So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, (50) And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” The second parable speaks of a separation at the end time. Then the seventh parable speaks again of the end time because it is the parable that describes the end time condition of Christendom at large. It proves there is to be a separation. I wish to say at this time, This separation that both parables speak of definitely points to the end; and proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that at the end time the Lord is not coming for a church based upon denominational tradition. The people He is coming for, to a certain degree, have had their lives affected by those systems of denominational religion; but before He takes any of them to glory He (God) is obligated to His own word and to His own law of reproduction, to bring about a separation that will allow the predestinated bride to be taught by the Holy Ghost and molded into an acceptable bride. God Himself will see to it due season. Matthew 13:43, can never be a reality until the bride is completely separated from everything else. Notice,”Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Saints, as we continue looking at this 7th parable, please notice that Jesus specifically pointed to the end time and to a total separation; and it takes place at the end of this Laodicean Age. It is how the Spirit is going to work. “Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net.” Jesus was referring to a fisherman’s net. He was not talking about one of these dip nets on the end of a stick. That is a dip net. He was talking about a net that you cast out into the water and draw in behind a boat, or between two boats; and you make a large sweep, hoping to catch untold numbers of fish in the net. This parable does not have an application at any other time in history except in the last hour of the Laodicean age. When we read about the Azusa Street move of the Spirit coming from 1906 on into the years of WW2, and how that move had become manifested in all the denominational structures, this proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that the real Church the Bible portrays has not yet come into focus. God has permitted man to take that move and go the route of all the other leaders went, simply because it was an extension of the Reformation. A time when God was allowing emphasis to be put upon the supernatural. Then as we came into the mid term of Laodicea and the war years were over, that is when we pick up the parable in Matthew 25, concerning the wise and foolish virgins. All of them went to sleep waiting for the Bridegroom; and only the wise element of the whole bunch awakened with what was required to make themselves ready to receive Him. The UPC, Apostolic Faith, Pentecostal Adventists, the Assemblies of God, Pentecostal Holiness, and all of these, have written their bylaws, their articles of faith. They have their denominational governments all set up; and everything is locked up: of what we will believe, what we will not believe, what we will cater to, and what we will not allow. They are ready to go off into eternity with what they have; but God will not accept them as they are. The old timers at Azusa Street (when that move first started) prayed, Lord, never let this become a denomination. May this be a move and flow of your Spirit that will move in the hearts of people who want to stay free and move in the flow of the Spirit. However, by the time it had run its three year course, it was already evident that man in that hour could not live outside the framework of human government. One by one they began to break ranks with what we will say was the freedom in the Spirit, and began to establish some kind of authority over how to control certain issues to keep them from going beyond what they felt they should. All of this proves one thing: There is no way God can rapture any one particular denominational church: simply because none of them are a system that embodies all the revelation of His word that God has given to His true Church. It shows there was still time, and that there was another element of people God intended to deal with; therefore when we come to midterm of the Laodicean age, here came the application of this parable. Here came that great net. Both of the two history books I read from give William Marrion Branham, along with Oral Roberts, credit for being the main instruments God used to spearhead the great revival that came out of the years of 1947 and 1948 and on into the 1950’s and early 1960’s. When other men of other ranks of Christendom began to catch a revelation and they too joined in, in what we look back and refer to as the great deliverance hour, this parable went into effect. “Again, the kingdom of heaven (We are dealing with time.) is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind.” When we go back into those years, from the time that move started and come on up to where it began to be evident that the Spirit of God was lifting off that way of dealing with mankind, it became very evident that His convicting power began to lessen. He was no longer healing in the same way He had been doing in the months and years prior to that time. That causes us to look at this parable: how the great net was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind. Oral Roberts could come into a big city and hundreds and thousands would go. Billy Graham could come to the same city six months later and many of the same crowd would sit in his meetings. Then someone else, Bro. William Branham for instance, could go in and the same people, always moved and drawn towards these big meetings, wherein they were permitted to see the power of God manifesting some miracle, as well as the convicting power of God touching a sinner’s life, would go to hear him. Now while the parable only illustrates that this net was cast in one time, let us look at it in this light, From the years around 1947, on into the 1950’s and up until about 1962, the net was being cast out. That is the period of time we apply this part of the parable to. After 1962, it began to be evident to these men, one by one, that God would no longer move in their meetings as he had in prior years. That is when the net was full. Time brought the whole thing to a climax. THEY DREW IT TO SHORE THEN SAT DOWN. THIS IS A PICTURE OF THOSE EVANGELISTS. I can start naming them, a lot of which some of you have not even heard of. Back in the late 1940’s when Gordon Lindsay began to document certain things, and write various articles about these evangelists, he started basically announcing Bro. William Branham and his meetings and the things that took place in them, the miracles and so forth. That magazine, (I still have a stack of them.) shows the crowds and carries the testimonies of how God worked in that hour of time. Then, as I said earlier, When that revival was over, one by one those evangelists began to go back to their old pastoral duties. The man we went to hear preach in Evansville, Indiana, was one of them. I have told this before; but in the later part of 1957, just before we went to Cuba, we went to hear him. His name was Gail Jackson: His father was an undertaker. He had studied the undertaker business with his father; but before he went into the business himself, he felt the call to preach. God filled him with His Spirit; and he came on the scene preaching divine healing, baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the power of God to deliver people that were demon possessed. In Evansville, the Church of Christ people had made an insulting remark about these healing evangelists that come to town; so he felt led to deal with that this particular night we were there. This was on Saturday night. He came on the platform that night and said, People, I came here, not to pick a fight with any denominational people; but to try to be a blessing to people of the churches around here. However, there is one church that has taken occasion to attack us: I have to call it the church of the antichrist. Then he preached about fifteen minutes after saying that. That tent was jam packed. There were people in the parking lot, hundreds of them. When he gave an altar call for sinners to come forward they came in under the tent flaps literally screaming. You could feel the power of God because it settled on everyone. You could feel the sensations flowing through your soul. Conviction was there like we have seen but few other times. But as the parable says, When men began to sit down, I heard he went back to his old job. Thelmer Gardner (another great evangelist) stacked his tent and became a big man in the Ramada Inn corporation. One by one they all began to resort to other things: They were no longer out there pulling on the strings of the net. One by one they took their place either in a pastoral job, or in industry of some sort. Furthermore, you could not help but notice that as younger ones came along to fill the ranks where the others sat down, they did not pick up the same vision their forerunners had. They picked up right where the others left off; but the results were never the same. That is why you see on TV and hear over the radio broadcasts what you do today. It is just a continuation of the picture of how the deliverance move came to an end and the fishermen, those forerunners of these men, sat down. In the natural you know the fisherman would sit there and would know by the law of the industry, what quality of fish the market demands. You have to take those things into consideration as you follow this thought. So what does it say? “And gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” That lets you know how all of this is going to turn out. Just think of the untold numbers of people that have passed through the doorways of church buildings, or under tent flaps, and have enjoyed these meetings and moves of the Spirit of God in days gone by. Some of them, if they are still alive, are very old people today. The sad part is, that they have no better revelation now than they had when the thing was going full blast. That is why I am so thankful I was privileged to sit and listen to the prophet to this Age when he was getting into the depths of Bible subjects these modern day preachers refuse to touch upon lest they loose their financial support. I heard about Bro. William Branham in 1952. I have to say in the light of what is going on in the Charismatic world, If there were a hundred doctors of divinity sitting here today from those ranks, talking in tongues and telling what they have enjoyed being a part of, my words would be this, I have experienced something you people are totally blind to. When I was still in the Methodist Church, and did not even know what God was doing in this religious world at large, He opened up a way for me to learn what He was doing and I have never been the same since then. I lived in Harrison County. I had no knowledge of what God was doing outside the ranks of the Methodist Church in Harrison County. That is the same situation thousands of people are existing in even today, in the Charismatic groups. They do not even know what God is doing in the world at large, only what they see in their own particular circle of fellowship. I will never forget that February morning I sat down on the couch and opened my Bible before I went outside to work; and my Bible opened up to the 1st chapter of Luke. It is very strange, He will show you things to come. If there was going to be a Malachi 4:5 for our day, why did He not go into the ranks of these Pentecostal people, which have maintained as fact that you have to speak in tongues as proof you have the Holy Ghost, and show one of them what He showed me that morning? If that is a promise of God, that those who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ will receive the Holy Ghost, and that Spirit, the Holy Ghost, is to teach you all things, and show you things to come, why did He not pick up one of those fellows that believed in that experience and let him sit down and read Luke 1? There, I was, just a Methodist fellow, with just an experience of the grace of God in justification, knowing only that He saved me from my sins and my stubborn, headstrong way of life. Nevertheless when I sat and read that 1st chapter of Luke and read where the angel spoke to Zechariah, that his wife Elizabeth would conceive and bring forth a son, and his name shall be John, then the angel quoted the first part of Malachi 4:5-6 to be fulfilled in Zechariah’s Son by saying, “And he shall go before HIM (Jesus) in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, (and then cut off at that point by saying,) and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord,” that got my attention. That part was not pertaining to the end time: It means this, God’s grace in the hour when He was fulfilling that first portion of Malachi, those that were going to be justified by hearing John, God would give them wisdom and understanding to know what was taking place in their lives. He will do likewise here at the end of the Age. He is obligated to, otherwise He leaves us in darkness. When I saw that the angel only quoted the first part, it was just like a tape recorder inside me, said, If we are living in the days before the second coming of Christ, He will send that spirit of Elijah back again, to fulfill the rest of that prophecy. I lived within twenty nine miles of where the man lived that God would use to fulfill the rest of that prophecy and did not know the man even existed at that time. I have to say also, I had never heard anyone speak in tongues; and did not even know there was such a thing going on anymore, since the days of the book of acts. This just goes to show that God did not have to go back into the Pentecostal ranks to get someone to continue on with what He was going to manifest for the little bride Church. Bro. William Branham‘s life proved he was an instrument God could use to set this parable of the fishermen’s net in motion. When the other men began to reach that point of time where they stacked their tents, sold their trucks and began to take up a ministry on TV, or go back to their old pastoral work or whatever, this man did none of that. Out of his lips began to come a revelatory message that set hearts to burning. Here came the Church Ages, then the Seals. All of which began to let people know the spirit of revelation was on the move. This is what distinguished this man from the rest of those fishermen. Let me read the rest of the parable. “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels (as we brought in earlier) shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.” Who are these wicked? This is not John Dillinger, Al Capone and gangsters like that. No. This is all these denominational spirits that control self esteeming religious people. I am a Methodist; and I will die a Methodist: some will say. Or, I am a Baptist; and I will die a Baptist. Shame on a person who talks like that, not knowing the truth of the scriptures. A Catholic can say the same thing. An Episcopalian can say the same thing. While they are saying that, you can rest assured, that kind of person does not even care, timewise, where or how they fit into God’s plan. They are just taking everything for granted. Therefore He sends forth the angels, “And sever the wicked from among the just.” When we look at it in its true application, how it applies to the Charismatic people, we see a great mass of people all claiming to be the bride of Christ. Nevertheless we must keep in mind that there are two different elements out there still yet. There is only one element in the true revelation; but there are still two elements out there: The foolish virgins and the tares. I hope you understand my point. The tares greatly outnumber the foolish virgins; but God knows the heart’s of every last one of them and He knows how to deal with them; and He will make no mistakes. Here again, is what verse 50, says, “And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: (Really they are not cast into the furnace of fire until we come to the great white throne judgment which takes place after the Millennial reign of Christ with His bride.) there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” After Jesus spoke this parable to His disciples of that hour, He then turned to them and asks the question, “Have ye understood all these things?” If we were to ask the Charismatic church world today, Do you understand what this parable is talking about? Do you think they would answer like those disciples did? “They say unto him, Yea, Lord. (52) Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, (Here is a directive promise and it is pointing right to our day and hour, because the disciples then who said Yea Lord, are all dead; but this directive promise it pointing down through time; and it was pointing right to this hour.) which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.”

WHO WAS THE SCRIBE JESUS SPOKE OF?

Jesus was not talking about the priests of the Dark Ages when He referred to a scribe which is instructed in things pertaining to the kingdom. He was not talking about Martin Luther and the beginning of the Reformation, Calvin, Knox, John Wesley nor any of those men. He was not talking about Wigglesworth, Charles Price, or any of those men. He was talking about a particular man that would be active in casting out that great gospel net: That when this endeavor had reached that fixed point in time, he would truly be like unto a scribe of this description. “Therefore every scribe which is instructed (meaning he is definitely going to be a man divinely taught by the Holy Ghost, every basic principle of truth in the Bible.) unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder.” We can illustrate this in the natural. When Jesus used this parable and spoke like this, He was not talking about some man on the back side of the country, living in a log cabin, and all He has is a No. 3 wash tub and old Maytag washing machine that did not work half the time; and an old Model T Ford that barely would run. That is not the kind of old things He was referring to. He is talking about a man that not only has property, but has some valuable assets and when you are invited into his home he might say, I would like to show you something; and then he might show you valuable antiques as well as new things of value. When you visit some people, those that come from a long line of people that were wealthy in days gone by; and all these valuable antique items have been handed down, they like to show them. Down by the River below Laconia, Indiana, there is a place called Cedar Farms. The original owners were the Withers family. I knew one of the boys and we became acquainted with their mother. We went down there one time and there sat that big house 19 miles from Louisville. You would wonder, What in the world is that huge thing sitting way down here for? She told the story about how her mother and father came across the river many years ago; and how that house came to be built there. When it was originally built, they were wealthy people. They had a piano from Europe and bedroom suites from different places. In one room they had a book library that a man who had studied law, drove a horse and buckboard all the way from Pennsylvania to Corydon Indiana to study law. There, was that bookcase, still loaded with books of law, in that big house. Saints: The reason I am bringing this into the message, is to illustrate some of what the Lord Jesus was referring to in this parable when He said, “Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” He is actually telling you that at the end time when this parable comes into it’s final phase, there is going to be a man, He compares him to a scribe, “which bringeth forth out of his treasure,” Hallelujah! He has more than an antique piano. He has more than a bookcase that came from Pennsylvania and was carried to Corydon on a buckboard. He is bringing out of his treasure things new. Hallelujah! Come on Charismatic, where is your new revelation? Where are the old truths your forefathers rejoiced in?. Your ancestors, moved by the Spirit, came out of those religious systems. Now you say, God is renewing all of them. Well I for one, cannot accept that. Those systems can never be revived. They fight against many of the basic doctrines of the Bible instead of desiring a revelation of how to apply them. When I was privileged to hear Bro. William Branham preach, he made Jesus of the Bible stand out in the forefront of everything else. He could make the doctrine of predestination sound so beautiful. I know this religious, Charismatic realm of so-called believers fight predestination like the devil fights all truth; but I have to say in the light of truth, The apostles of old did not waste time writing about a revelation or a doctrine that would be detrimental to the apostolic faith of the early church and all that would follow after them. No saints, everything those apostles taught is still for the Church today. The true teachings of predestination is as Biblical as the teachings of sanctification. The trouble has come because of a wrong interpretation and application of the very word itself. The true teaching and understanding of the doctrine of predestination is as essential to the faith, as you being filled with the Holy Ghost. That is exactly why the apostle Paul wrote in Romans, Colossians, Philippians and Ephesians of the doctrine; and then Peter picked it up in his epistles also, simply because the true application of it belongs to the true Church. Those who are predestinated are foreordained: Both words point to the same thing. Praise God! Because God foreknew us, we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His only begotten Son Jesus. Somehow or other people who fight against predestination cannot get the free moral agency of man and the foreknowledge of God working together in their understanding. That is why they go at things the way they do. They think God is more concerned about fulfilling the dreams of man, than He is in carrying out His own sovereign, omniscient purpose. He foreknew you and me before we were born, what our free moral agency choice would be and everything else about each of us. That is why when He wrote His book before the foundation of the world, your name was written in it: He knew what your choice concerning His plan of redemption would be. Then when you were born, He already knew exactly what time, what generation, what century and all of that. He knew before you were born whether it would be in the days of the horse and buggy or the early days of the automobile, or in this very hour we are living in; so He ordained your life accordingly. Yes He did. He knew we would be living in an evil hour. Look at youth in the world today: that are so blinded by the power of Satan. I have to say, Thank you God: that you have something special for the youth that have a desire to serve you in this hour of time. The baptism of His Spirit is the most precious thing any of us could receive from the sovereign Creator that is also known to us as our heavenly Father. Out there in the world, they beat and rock and roll in their dens of degradation and hell awaits all who cling to that way of life; but God has a higher realm and atmosphere for His true children; and heaven awaits them. If they want to call us holy rollers, that is their privilege. They use that as a derogatory term, hoping to provoke us to wrath; but we have a much higher purpose in life than to take offense at someone’s ignorance. Furthermore, if not for the grace of God in our lives, we would be out there with them doing the very same things they are doing. We did not merit what God has bestowed upon us: we received it by His grace, through the faith we exercised to believe that what He promised in His word, He would deliver. Yes saints, what we have from God, we received it by faith in His written word: For that is how we learn what Jesus did for us at Calvary. That is where we learn what God has done on behalf of all who will believe His word and follow after His ways. When Jesus went to the cross and died, He paid the full price for all of our sins and sicknesses: that we might be set free from Satan’s hold on our lives; but we only receive those benefits when we exercise our own personal faith to believe that we were included in that provision. Did not the apostle Paul write that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God? Let us read a few verses from Romans 3, while we are at this point. (22-26)”Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (24) Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (25) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (26) To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” As I said earlier, The children of God are greatly outnumbered by the children of the wicked one in this hour of time; but there is coming a day when the whole picture will be reversed: The children of God will live forever and all the rest will be cast into the lake of fire. That is why the Bible says they have their reward already: The only reward they receive is what they have in this present life. Well let me get back to the instrument God used in this Laodicean Age.

REVELATION TRUTH V/S DENOMINATIONAL TRADITIONS

Brother Branham was the instrument God used to start this great move of the gospel net. Those who sat in his meetings back then, thought that gift of healing, discernment, and all that, was all God sent the man to this generation for. Because of the fact that he was so uneducated, they thought God could not use such a man to teach the great truths of the Bible. He used hillbilly language, slang, and such, and they could not understand what he was saying much of the time; so they would say, I do not understand what the man is talking about. That is why God, through him, spoke in such terms of simplicity, you had to know the man, to really know what he said and know what he meant. It was very beautiful how he would take certain things of the Bible and make them talk to you, if you had a desire to learn and did not come just to find fault with his manner of speaking. The night he started preaching on those seven seals in the book of Revelation, it was such a privilege to sit there and hear how he brought out the true meaning of them. Just think of it, There is not a Charismatic church anywhere, that will dare go to those books and try to learn anything. When the first seal was broken, there goes the spirit of antichrist. You can already see it there. It is all already in the past. That seal became a reality more than 1900 years ago. That is why Paul says in 54 A.D., when he was writing the first epistle to the Thessalonians, Even now, the mystery of iniquity doth already work. That white horse rider was riding; but he represented the spirit of antichrist that rode out to deceive that second generation of Christians. When he came to the red horse rider, then the black horse rider, then the gray horse rider, which is riding right now, it was so plain anyone should have been able to understand it; but no, it was to simple to suit educated minds: They needed something with a lot of theological words to express it. Oh, if they could only see the seals, they would know for sure that they are under the spell of that message of the gray horse rider. That horse is neither gray nor black: it is a mixture of both; but only the wise see the rider for what he really is. Billy Graham wrote his version of the four horse riders and has all of them riding somewhere on out in the future. Billy Branham spoke of them as being all in the past (the seals) except the seventh seal which is yet to be opened. God is speaking to an element of people out there, before He winds all of this up; and I believe we all know why: The parable of Matthew 25, has to be fulfilled. I believe the hour is coming, as God moves among His people to get the bride of Christ dressed up and made ready to meet the Bridegroom, that He is going to reverse the scene. Something is going to happen out there: that will cause those foolish virgins to suddenly stop and say, There is something taking place that we are missing; but by the time they begin to realize it, time will be too far gone for them to get into the bride’s revelation: It will be too late for them to do anything that could save them from facing that great tribulation hour. They will begin to go where the wise virgins are; but they will not understand what is being taught. Therefore let me say to you young people, That could be next year, two years from now or three years from now; but keep in mind, when that really begins to be fulfilled in numerous ways, you and I are going to know the coming of Jesus for His Bride is just a short distance ahead. Right now, they are seeing the Holy Spirit move in various ways among them and a great number of them do not have the slightest clue as to what is going on. The mass has said, Oh this is God; but yet from another viewpoint, some of the theologians, the writers and certain others look upon all that is taking place, with much skepticism. I read some of this article to you the other night; but I left this part off until now. I have no doubts concerning what my eyes have been privileged to see moving among this congregation lately. I am convinced with all my heart it is the Spirit of God working among us to do a specific thing. Here is why I look at it this way, No. 1, it was already going on out there. He did not have to come here; but when He did come here, He made His introduction in a sovereign way. He did not say, Can I do this? All of a sudden these young people that had been sitting here talking and writing notes to each other, began to be caught up in the Spirit just like a great magnet had crossed over and grabbed them. I have to praise God and say, Thank you Father: You are a sovereign God. The things I have witnessed here, I am quick to say, I am not ashamed of any of it. I have to say, Lord, we are your people: Come among us and do with us whatever pleases you. If my heart is not right, then help me Lord to get it right. I want every negative idea and preconceived thought purged out of me. I want all unbelief out of me. I want whatever help I need, to get me in the place where you want me to be Lord. I want God to help me be what He wants me to be, and not what I want to be. I want to see things the way He wants me to see them, instead of the way I think I ought to see them. I just have to realize, I know nothing apart from what He has revealed to me. My traditional ideas of the past, when I was still in the Methodist Church, are totally unprofitable to me. It is by the grace of God that I am here. He could have left me out there, blind, stubborn and self willed; but here I am today, desiring only what He wants me to have. I am not preaching because I am smart. I am preaching because He gave me something to preach. If He had not given me the grace to stand here it would be a completely different story: I was too timid to stand before a crowd of people years ago. I could not even ask that little girl that eventually became my wife, for my first date: My sister had to ask her for me. Therefore I believe you will agree that something had to take place inside of me, to get me to stand here in this place. I am not ashamed of what God has done among these young people, nor am I ashamed of what He has done for some of the older ones. Furthermore, I am persuaded that He is not done yet. You may think He is; but you just stick around a while and you will see that He has just begun to work on us: there is yet much to come. There is not one sitting in here, no matter how much you may question what is taking place right now, that can sit here forever without one of these days God moving in a certain way that will be just for you. It will either line you up with what He is doing, or it will send you fleeing out the door. I am now going to read the other part of this paper I have already been reading from. I am going to show you that something has stripped those people of being able to discern what is really going on among them.

Sandy Miller, the vicar of the Holy Trinity Brompton, writes: “The manifestations are quite extraordinary (Now see, this is one man referring to what someone else has said,) and would undoubtedly be alarming if we had not read about them previously in history.”(The various manifestations they have been having, is what he is referring to; and we are printing this exactly as the writer presents it in this article) He then quotes from previous revivals, but such quotations as he uses do not confirm that these manifestations have happened before. (Where has that man been?)In fact a leader of one of the streams affected by this move admitted to me that many of them (the manifestations) do not fully sit with what has happened in the past. (Everything I have ever read does.)

So many of those experiencing the present phenomena refer to Acts 2 where the disciples were charged with being drunk. (In Acts 2, when they came from the upper room and they were all speaking in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance, the ability to speak, as they come down into the streets from the upper room, was of the Holy Ghost. After awhile this great throng of Jews, devout men, gathered out of every nation under heaven, sixteen different nations in and around the old world of the Mediterranean, coming from different national dialects of speaking, and he writes for this, that they were being drunk.) They consequently justify all the phenomena associated with drunkenness that have appeared in their meetings. (Now this man doing this writing says this,) Let me quote from a document prepared by the Vineyard Fellowship in Toronto: “They (the disciples)(speaking of the disciples of the Bible) would not be accused of being drunk because they were speaking in different languages. They would be accused of such because they were acting like drunks, i.e. laughing, falling, (Now he is referring to present tense phenomena of things going on in their midst.) slurred speech by some, boldness through lack of restraint etc. (meaning lack of self control) That is sheer supposition! There is no evidence for such a statement indeed quite the reverse, for those round about were able to “hear them in their own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” They heard clearly and unmistakably – no evidence of slurred speech. It was ‘mockers’ who said they were drunk, which is hardly reliable source for listing symptoms of drunkenness. Previously, until these manifestations occurred, evangelical preachers considered that it was their boldness, (Listen to this.) which brought about the accusation that they had been drinking. That seems to fit in much better with the accounts in Acts 2.

As I read that, I can see he does not know himself. Let us turn to Joel 1:5. I want to show you a Bible prophecy. Joel carries two lines of prophetic utterance. One pertains to the natural nation, the Israelite people. The other prophecy is pertaining to the move and flow of the descent of the Holy Ghost. “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.” Then the prophecy drops back to the natural, speaking of a nation God is going to use. When we bring that over into the second chapter, He is talking about how he will restore to them the years that the locusts has eaten and so forth, and then he comes on down and says in (Joel 2:28-29,) “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: (29) And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.” Now when we take that to the 2nd chapter of Acts, I have to say this to any doctor of divinity, You may have a plaque on your wall that vindicates the fact you spent so many years studying Hebrew and Greek, but you are still as blind as blind can be. In the book of Acts, when they did come into the streets, they were not only speaking in another language, they were doing something beyond that. I want to explain something: Those people in that upper room were all literally speaking in another dialect. I want to see how many understand that. They were all speaking in another dialect because that is where they were first filled with the Holy Ghost, in the upper room. Then they began to speak in other dialects, which was other languages, as the Spirit gave utterance, which means the Spirit carried a certain dialect that it would speak through them. If God, at the tower of Babel, came down and confounded man’s language, is He not the author of it? Then can He not in reverse do the same thing to show forth a supernatural presence of His very being? There, they came, down into the streets still talking in these various languages. That prophecy we just read, in Joel, chapter 1, was pointing to the dispensation when this new wine was going to be poured out in an experience way and that is what took place on the day of Pentecost. They came from the upper room, not only speaking in other dialects as the Spirit in them was speaking through them, but they were acting much like men in the natural that are drunk. I care not what any doctor of divinity may say, trying to straighten that out, I still have to say, What is that prophecy in the 1st chapter of Joel for? Who is He warning? He is not warning that bunch of drunks down in the tavern. No. He is using that to illustrate how you will act when He comes with a new wine He had determined to give His people; therefore there will be manifestations that will look much like what you see down at the tavern. Those disciples that came down from the upper room, were acting like they were drunk on natural wine as they came out into the streets of Jerusalem talking like that. I could not care less, what a writer like that will say: What do they know? When God did fill me with the Holy Ghost back in the 1950’s, after hearing William Branham say, You Methodists need it too, I did not speak in tongues right at the beginning: I just lay there on the floor of a high school building over in Louisville; and that is when that whole building seemed to be going around and around with me. When I thought, My, what am I doing here? I will get up real quick: I tried to get up but the harder I tried, the more it seemed like I was glued to the floor. I want you to know saints, The power of God can take every bit of the muscle fiber in your body and render you helpless. Yes, it can. It can do it to let you know He is a sovereign God. You, in your best of health, cannot change one molecule of your existence if God wants to show His power to you. From that time in April of that year, until the fall, I prayed in the woods, in the corn field, or wherever I was, Lord if you will just let me speak in tongues, I will never preach it as evidence of having the Holy Ghost because I know it is not. Then when the hour came, yes from that time I initially received it, there were other times I was as drunk as drunk could be, and I never have been drunk on natural liquor in my life. I never wanted to be caught up in any of that. There is such a thing though as the Spirit of God affecting you in your nervous system, or your emotional makeup, so that it can actually cause you to stagger and feel dizzy, as much as any man drunk on alcohol beverages. I do not know why these doctors of divinity, being educated like they are, think they are the only one’s the Lord has on earth that can interpret this scripture and advise people of what is right and wrong. The wine I have been drunk on, also gives revelation knowledge of the word of God. That is the wine and the oil in the book of Revelation, in that black horse hour, where it says, See thou hurt not the oil and wine. You cannot sell the baptism of the Holy Ghost like the Catholic Church does everything else. That lets us know there are certain things within the realm of the Holy Ghost that no theologian, and no church system is going to be able to manipulate and use it for their own personal objectives. Anyhow when we come to the book of Acts, and those disciples are standing there speaking in other dialects, there is something I need to explain about it because people sometimes refer to it like this, Here is 120 Galileans: that in the natural only knew how to speak Hebrew or Aramaic. That was the language in the hour of Jesus and those people in the upper room were Judaean Jews who were familiar with only their native dialect which was either Hebrew or the old Aramaic language. However, in the Spirit, God has taken control of their speech; and they are out in the streets of Jerusalem experiencing something completely strange to them. The Spirit of God is speaking through them in other languages. Here is a Jew from Rome. What is the language in Rome? Latin. Is that understood? He hears a Galilaean Jew speaking to him in Latin, of the things of Christ. There were Jews present from about 16 different nations whose language was heard spoken from at least one of those disciples that day. They said one to another, How hear we every one of us in our own language? (Acts 2:5-11) “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. (6) Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. (7) And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? (8) And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? (9) Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, (10) Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, (11) Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” That should let us see that God can do anything it takes to fulfill His plan and purpose. There is nothing impossible with Him. There were only about 16 different regions mentioned and there were 120 disciples speaking, so it is obvious that there were more than just one or two speaking the various different dialects that were spoken in their home area wherever they were from. They were all represented. None were left out. How many times though, have you heard someone say, Those disciples were not really speaking in all those different tongues: The others were just made to hear what they were saying in their own native dialect? Why will some people believe that God could anoint the ears of the hearers; but refuse to believe that He could anoint the speakers to speak those various dialects? If they had all been speaking the same language, why would those local Jews think they sounded like they were drunk on new wine? I believe the answer is obvious: they heard them jabbering words that they themselves could not understand, so their first impression was, They are all drunk. What happened with Bro. William Branham in El Paso Texas, one Saturday night was just the reverse of what happened on the day of Pentecost. It truly was a case when God gave supernatural hearing to a language they normally did not understand. I do not remember which message you will find it in; but I believe it was in the Spanish realm somewhere: probably in Mexico. He was praying for some people, I think it was that, or something like that. Then later it was said to someone, I thought you said he did not know this language. Whatever he was saying, they understood every bit of it in their own language. Keep in mind, That is the opposite of what took place on the day of Pentecost. I have to say, We are living in an hour when, if we will walk with God, there are many things in the category of the supernatural He can bring out and present in our midst that will confound the wise and mighty. That is why He will do it: He does not have to prove anything to His true children: They are already believers. Now let us look at this thing they refer to as slurred speech. I know how drunks can slur their speech. I know also that people full of the Holy Ghost can have the same manifestation. Oh Bro. Jackson, that is not so. It is so. The apostle Paul, when he was explaining in the 13th chapter of Corinthians, when he was setting forth the divine order in the assembly, did he not speak of proper order for tongues, interpretation, prophecy and so forth? Isaiah 28, where it says, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people,” that is what happened on the day of Pentecost. For with stammering lips, slurred speech, and men of other tongues will I speak unto this people. Yet for all this they will not believe. You can read the rest of Isaiah’s prophecy, in chapter 28. God fulfilled Joel’s prophecy, and He fulfilled Isaiah 28. That is why Paul could refer to it like he did. Nevertheless when these critics hear people just babbling undistinguishable words, naturally it could sound like those speaking are drunk: The Holy Ghost can absolutely manifest situations just like that. Many people have that same drunken action; and I want you to know, That does not bother me the least bit because I see it in the book. That does not mean the slurred speech should have supremacy over that which is to be interpreted; but we should not take a stand against it, lest we be found objecting to something God is doing for His own reasons. Keep in mind, God will put just enough of something in there to keep that intelligent brain on his toes. God does nothing for the purpose of confusing His true children because they have an honest attitude and realize God chooses the simple things to confound the wise and prudent. The things the world would say hogwash to, God uses them for a purpose. That is what the writer of the article we read was kind of referring to: some of the other things that went on in snake handling and stuff, how unscriptural it looks. Well you certainly cannot say snake handling is apostolic. It is not. That just presents a picture of people who have been derailed by the spirit of Satan. They have missed the true way. Let us be thankful to God that we love His word and seek to understand the true revelation of everything written in His book.

I am going to bring this message to a close. I believe we have covered it well enough. I see out in the Charismatic realm what started at Azusa Street and I do not find fault with the manifestations; but I am made to realize that what they have is void of any deeper revelation. Yes there are blessings, and there are various manifestations; and all of those manifestation are doing a unique job; but those who are caught up in the excitement of all of that and have no desire to move on with God are not bride saints. All of that is fulfilling scriptures; but it is not teaching those people how to prepare themselves for the rapture. That is why it leaves doctors of divinity, scholarly minded men, writing their articles of unbelief: There is no rapture and so forth: God has stripped them of whatever revelation they could have had. Did not Jesus say, If the blind lead the blind they will both fall in the ditch? We are not children of the night. We are not people who are blind. We are children of light and we love that light. It just makes me say, Thank God! I do not deserve it but I sure do appreciate it. My prayer is, Lord whatever you see fit to do with this little message, and whatever you see fit to do with each of us, may we everyone be sensitive to your leading; and may you continue to move in our midst to purge from every one of us all that is contrary to true righteousness. AMEN.